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Violinist, composer, filmmaker, writer, photographer and playwright Yale Strom was a pioneer among revivalists in conducting extensive field research in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans among the Jewish and Rom communities since the early 1981. Initially, his work focused primarily on the use and performance of klezmer music among these two groups. Gradually, his focus increased to examining all aspects of their culture, from post-World War II to the present. Over more than 2 decades and 75 such research expeditions, Strom has become one of the world's leading scholar-ethnographer-artists of klezmer music and history.
His klezmer research was instrumental in helping form the repertoires of his klezmer band, Hot Pstromi. [please add link www.hotpstromi.com] Since he began first band in 1981, Strom has been composing his own New Jewish music, which combines klezmer with Hasidic nigunim , Rom, jazz, classical, Balkan and Sephardic motifs. These compositions range from songs to quartets to a symphony, which premiered with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. He composed original music for the Denver Center production of Tony Kushner's The Dybbuk. He also composed all the New Jewish music for the National Public Radio series Fiddlers, Philosophers & Fools: Jewish Short Stories from the Old World to the New, hosted by Leonard Nimoy, as well as numerous film (A Life Apart) and dance (Malashock Dance Troupe) scores. Strom is also one of the only top composers of Jewish music to carry on the tradition of writing original songs, with Yiddish lyrics, about humanitarian and social issues, as well as melodies for synagogue liturgy commissioned by synagogues like B'nai Jeshurun in New York City. His many recordings run the gamut of traditional klezmer to "new" Jewish music and have appeared on Top Ten, Year's Best and critically acclaimed lists across North America. Strom has performed with many world renowned musicians including Andy Statman, Mark Dresser, Marty Ehrlich, Mark O'Connor, Alicia Svigals, Samir Chatterjee, Salman Ahmad, Damian Draghici, Adam del Monte, Lulo Reinhardt, Sunny Jain and many other virtuosi.
Strom is a compelling educator. During his years teaching at NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, Strom created a course, "Artist-Ethnographer Expeditions" that remains in the curriculum. He is an artist-in-residence in the Jewish Studies Program at San Diego State University, a position that was created for him. He was the first klezmer violinist to be invited to instruct master classes at the American String Teachers Association and is the klezmer instructor at the prestigious Mark O'Connor Fiddle Camp.
Strom's research has also resulted in photo documentary books, documentary films, as well as CD recordings. He is the author of The Book of Klezmer: The History, The Music, The Folklore ( 2002)" is a 400 page history with original photos and sheet music gathered by Strom during his sixty-plus ethnographic trips to Central and Eastern Europe. A Wandering Feast: A Journey Through the Jewish Culture of Eastern Europe written in collaboration with his wife, Elizabeth Schwartz, is part cookbook, part travelogue (2005). He is also the author of The Absolutely Complete Klezmer Songbook (2006). His first children's book The Wedding That Saved A Town (2008) is based upon his research in Poland and hearing this story about klezmer musicians playing at a wedding of two orphans held in a cemetery when there was a cholera epidemic. Strom the first biography on the seminal klezmer clarinetist Dave Tarras. The book is called Dave Tarras: The King of Klezmer (2010). With Schwartz and Ellen Kushner, Strom co-authored (and composed the music for) the award-winning audio drama "The Witches of Lublin" www.thewitchesoflublin.com Finally he has a new book out at the end of 2012 called SHPIL! The Art of Playing Klezmer that will provide for musicians chapters on how to play the clarinet, accordion, bass, drums, violin and to sing in Yiddish. The book includes sheet music as well.

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